Subways

News about Subways, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.

Chronology of Coverage

Mar. 2, 2015

Side Street column; profile of Fernando Miteff, Bronx graffiti artist known as Nic 707 in the 1970s who has found his way back to art form that he abandoned for decades; Miteff has created new method that involves slipping pieces into empty advertising frames on subways and then removing them when train reaches end of the line. MORE

Feb. 7, 2015

New York City health officials dispute study, conducted by researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College and published in online journal Cell Systems, claiming to have found evidence of bubonic plague in city's subway system; study's authors concede that bacterium they detected could be different. MORE

Feb. 6, 2015

Study conducted by Dr Christopher E Mason and Weill Cornell Medical College concludes that New York City subway system is filled with hundreds of species of bacteria and that half of DNA found on system's surfaces do not match any known organism; only .02 percent of DNA found matches human genome. MORE

Jan. 28, 2015

Jim Dwyer About New York column notes that shutdown of city's entire subway system in expectation of snow storm was unprecedented and that trains have run in past under worse conditions. MORE

Jan. 23, 2015

Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board votes to raise base fare on subway and bus rides by a quarter, to $2.75, and cost of 30-day MetroCard by $4.50, to $116.50; increases are set to take effect March 22, 2015, and are part of authority's long-term revenue strategy. MORE

Jan. 14, 2015

National Transportation Safety Board is investigating Washington's aging Metro system after one rider died when electrical malfunction filled subway tunnel with smoke. MORE

Jan. 13, 2015

Downtown Metrorail tunnel in Washington fills with smoke, killing one woman aboard subway train; 83 people are hospitalized. MORE

Jan. 1, 2015

Metropolitan Transportation Authority says it is disabling emergency exit sirens at all of its subway stations, acknowledging that sirens have done little to discourage fare evasion. MORE

Dec. 29, 2014

Metropolitan Transportation Authority is starting new subway etiquette campaign and New York Times readers list their top grievances; tops on list include door hogs, pole huggers, poor grooming and litterbugs. MORE

Dec. 21, 2014

Metropolitan Transportation Authority in January 2015 will unveil public service ads aimed at curbing rude behavior like spreading legs wide and wearing large backpacks on crowded trains; over 6.1 million people ride New York City's subway on a single day, leaving little leg room. MORE

Nov. 19, 2014

New York City Police say Kevin Darden has been charged with fatally shoving Wai Kuen Kwok into path of oncoming subway train in the Bronx; Darden was taken into custody in separate assault at Manhattan subway station after pushing another man to subway platform. MORE

Nov. 18, 2014

New York City police continue all-out manhunt, aided by New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force, for man who pushed Wai Kuen Kwok onto subway tracks on D line in Bronx; man caught on surveillance video has been identified but police will not release his name or say if he is a suspect and no new leads have developed in seemingly random attack. MORE

Nov. 17, 2014

Wai Kuen Kwok of the Bronx is pushed to his death from D train platform; surveillance video shows man described by witnesses as assailant, who remains at large; police say nothing was stolen and it does not appear there was any prolonged confrontation before the incident. MORE

Nov. 10, 2014

Fulton Center, Lower Manhattan subway complex where nine subway lines converge, reopens more than a decade after being destroyed in the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; New Yorkers, accustomed to thinking of transit hubs like Penn Station and Times Square as places to suffer through, will find a kind of Crystal Palace, crowned by a dome that funnels daylight two stories below ground. MORE

Oct. 16, 2014

David W Dunlap Building Blocks column praises proliferation of public artwork along the West End line of Brooklyn's D train, between Sunset Park and Coney Island; notes that works, commissioned by the Arts and Design program of the Metropolitan Transportation authority, include mosaics, cast-bronze bees and even a 20-foot-long translucent hot dog. MORE

Oct. 15, 2014

Emergency subway exit is used by man in smoke bomb attack at Avenue of the Americas and Third Street in the West Village, outside Bar Pitti restaurant; police have not identified motive or suspect, and case raises security concerns for Metropolitan Transportation Authority. MORE

Oct. 3, 2014

Manhattan West residents are excited at the prospect of new subway lines, while East-siders are skeptical; Second Avenue line has been staggering and stalling since 1929, when the city first decided it should be built; decision to roll the No. 7 train toward the Hudson River was not made until 2009. MORE

Sep. 26, 2014

American intelligence officials are skeptical of Iraqi Prime Min Aider al-Abadi's assertion that Islamic State is planning to attack targets in Europe and the United States, including subways, but say they are looking into it nonetheless. MORE

Sep. 23, 2014

Federal officials announce that New York and New Jersey will receive about $3.3 billion to prepare transportation networks against future storms as two-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy approaches; biggest pieces of the funding package will go to the New York City subway system and commuter rail systems in surrounding region. MORE

Sep. 15, 2014

New York City transit worker crews are often called upon to recover items lost by passengers; workers have corralled collection of artificial body parts, scooped engagement rings from the rails and reunited children with stuffed animals; they say that rigors of job have multiplied, with smartphone proliferation and in-station Wi-Fi producing a more distracted ridership and sending more phones tumbling to the tracks. MORE

Sep. 13, 2014

Metropolitan Transportation Authority says subway service through Hurricane Sandy-damaged tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan is set to resume. MORE

Aug. 17, 2014

Gia Kourlas describes her love of subway dance performances; laments that New York City is attempting to crackdown on these performers. MORE

Aug. 10, 2014

FYI column answers questions about telephone utility poles in New York's outer boroughs and significance of bulbs at subway station entrances. MORE

Aug. 3, 2014

Look column presents photos taken by Kevin Shea Adams of defaced advertisements on New York City subway station walls, MORE

Jul. 29, 2014

Young acrobatic subway dancers, cheered by tourists, tolerated by regulars, feared by those who frown upon kicks in the face, have unwittingly found themselves top priority for New York Police Department; arrests of performers have more than quadrupled in 2014, to 203 through early July, compared with 48 over same period in 2013; focus on mass-transit performers is part of a new push against low-level crimes in city. MORE

Jul. 26, 2014

Michael Wilson Crime Scene column; New York City police officers arrest workers at Scrap King and City Scrap Metal, in Flushing, NY, for purchasing stolen copper from undercover officer; until recently, theft of copper from city's subway tunnels was largely a thing of the past. MORE

Jul. 25, 2014

Metropolitan Transportation Authority will discontinue G train service between Greenpoint and Queens for five weeks to repair damage to tunnel from Hurricane Sandy; discontinuation of service is likely to focus attention on worries about limitations and condition of Greenpoint's public transportation as tens of thousands of people are expected to move into luxury apartment towers rising on waterfront. MORE

Jul. 22, 2014

Woman jumps onto tracks at Queens subway station after stroller carrying her 2-year-old daughter rolls over edge of platform; mother and daughter sustained minor injuries and train service was not disrupted. MORE

Jul. 17, 2014

David W Dunlap Building Blocks column notes that sealed passageway from original Hotel Knickerbocker in Times Square to subway platform has come to light again; Knickerbocker is being renovated as luxury hotel after more than 90 years as an office building. MORE

Jul. 17, 2014

Moscow police arrest senior track foreman and his assistant for improperly installing a wire that is being blamed for subway crash that killed 22 people. MORE

Jul. 16, 2014

Moscow Metro train derails underground, killing at least 20 people and injuring more than 100 others; cause is not immediately clear but authorities blame a power failure, a botched emergency stop or a mechanical flaw with a wheel chassis. MORE

Jul. 14, 2014

Thirteen artists participate in MTA Zine Residency event, creating self-published, hand-made periodicals while riding the F subway line; event was organized by librarian and archivist at Barnard College library, which is said to maintain largest circulating collection of zines in an academic library. MORE

Jul. 13, 2014

Christopher Gray Streetscapes column says great thing about collection of photographs, taken to document building of New York City's first subway, is that they capture the miscellany of city life in a way that formal architectural photographs rarely do. MORE

Jul. 9, 2014

North Carolina woman Frankea Dabbs, 20, is charged with child abandonment after police say she left her 11-month-old daughter Milani Love Edmonds at the Columbus Circle subway station platform. MORE

Jul. 8, 2014

New York City police are trying to determine identities of the baby girl abandoned on the subway platform at the Columbus Circle station and the woman who left her; baby, thought to be 6- or 7-months old, is unharmed and in custody of city's Administration for Children's Services. MORE

Jun. 8, 2014

App City column on Tunnel Vision, app that turns New York City's subway map into a fount of information about the city and the subway system itself. MORE

May. 30, 2014

Construction of No 7 subway line's new terminus on the West Side of Manhattan, along with test failure of its unusual elevator, provides useful case study in the difficulties of capital construction in New York City. MORE

May. 23, 2014

Mexico City Journal; 11 of Mexico City's 20 Golden Line subway stations are forced to close until further notice, tarnishing fast and cheap system that carries 5.3 million people a day, among world's busiest. MORE

May. 22, 2014

University student wielding knife attacks riders aboard subway train in Taipei, Taiwan, killing four people and wounding at least 21. MORE

May. 18, 2014

Swedish group known as Planka.nu offers instructional videos on how to slip through subway stations in Stockholm without paying, and it uses monthly dues to covers fines for any members who are nabbed; transit officials say organization has helped lead many thousands of riders to simply stop paying fares; 15 million trips in 2013 were reportedly not paid for--3 percent of all rides. MORE

May. 16, 2014

Metropolitan Transportation Authority says it will add 33 round trips on the L line on Saturdays and 22 on Sundays beginning in the fall, helping to relieve persistent overcrowding; three weekday evening trips will also be added. MORE

May. 14, 2014

Jim Dwyer About New York column; advertisers are paying six figures to redecorate subway trains decades after similar moving murals were considered eyesores and were wiped out after they first appeared on subway cars; graffiti murals are being displayed at City Lore gallery on Lower East Side. MORE

May. 7, 2014

Art handlers remove Ralph Fasanella painting Subway Riders from subway station at 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue, where it has remained since becoming first oil painting to occupy New York City subway station in 1995; painting will form part of traveling exhibition Self Taught Genius: Treasures From the American Folk Art Museum. MORE

May. 7, 2014

Comedian Liza Dye delivers first set since being struck by subway train; performance, at Upright Citizen's Brigade, raises question of whether calamity can be transformed into comedy; accident has served to bring Dye more professional exposure. MORE

May. 5, 2014

Metropolitan Transportation Authority expects to resume normal subway service from Queens into Manhattan along E, F, M and R lines affected by derailment; investigators have found fracture in the a portion of the express track near the station where an F train derailed. MORE

May. 4, 2014

Partial local service is temporarily restored to subway lines running along Queens Boulevard in Queens, day after 19 people were injured in worst derailment in New York City subway system in over two decades; express service remains suspended. MORE

May. 3, 2014

Subway train derails near 65th Street in Woodside, Queens, injuring 19 people and setting off a wide-scale effort to reach about 1,000 stranded passengers; it is unclear what caused the derailment, the most serious on the New York City subway system since 1991, when 5 people were killed and more than 200 injured. MORE

Apr. 19, 2014

Michael Wilson Crime Scene column; theft of copper cables in New York City subways has had a resurgence in recent years, with scrap-metal companies paying upwards of $24 a foot for copper subway cable; New York Police Dept detectives have begun using 'trophy cameras,' normally used to track deer after dark by snapping infrared pictures, to catch copper thieves in underground darkness of subway tunnels. MORE

Mar. 24, 2014

Data released by Metropolitan Transportation Authority shows ridership on L train increased at every station in 2013, with authority adding service during rush hours and off-peak periods and making various upgrades; improvements do not dampen debate over train, which is both considered creative id of a new Brooklyn, and rumbling monument to gentrification's curse. MORE